Rank; different chains of command

[Callan S.]

A traditional view on rank in RPG's (though probably not common) is that the GM is top dog and says what goes and the players are policed by him, the players all being equal.

Of course how it really manifests is pretty varied with every group, but typically you get that asserted atleast around quite a few RPG boards as how it is (despite the evidence). And I'd say quite a few problems manifest when the 'equal' players have to call out another player on something. Or esspecially when they have to call out the GM.

But what about deliberate system instructions on how rank should be handed out, so the book instructs something different? When I bought AD&D for reference purposes, I was shocked at the play example, where essentially there was a leader of the PC's and he was the only one talking with the GM, while the rest of the players seemed to add little bits here or there. Otherwise it was basically leader does intense one on one talks with the GM. I wasn't shocked in the sense that I thought it was bad, but it was just such an unusual structure to me.

So what about other rank structures: Perhaps something that extends that leader example from before. So you go from GM to leader, to second in command and so on through each individual playing. And actually provide system support by giving each rank something they can reward lower ranks with (no need to provide a punishment method, lack of reward is a punishment in my book).

It does sounds awful in a way, but it really is a system where the buck stops somewhere damn quick. If someones screwing around, the higher up is in a postition to deny reward. If something goes wrong in a session, instead of a bunch of 'equals' looking around for who to blame and who's got the gumption to do so, you can see who was in charge and should have headed it off

eg, some player was in charge of two others who kept picking each others pockets till there was a fight and bitterness between the actually players. In a 'all players are equal', who's to blame? The GM for not breaking it up (that's a bit too easy a buck pass), the players themselves when they lost sight of the big picture? The other players, who had nothing to do with it even though technically they could have stopped it? Whom?

You can try and go into fine detail of such a situation to find the culprit, but typically that's after the damage is done. Really you need someone watching and with control at the time.

Still, the power structure there doesn't tickle my fancy too much. So you could instead have a specialisation based rank. So you have someone in charge of story (I wont get detailed on what I mean by story), somone in charge of rules, someone in charge of setting, etc. Again, they can all reward (or punish by not giving reward) activity within the confines of their special area, somehow.

This last one sounds sort of like what happens anyway, with the rules knower, the setting knower and the story maker all inputting credibility. But here they can re-inforce it with the reward they can hand out.

Any thoughts on this, or past threads (I tried a search and failed)? Thanks for reading, anyway.

Cheerz,
Callan

[neelk]

I paid attention to this for my Nobilis game, and came to the conclusion that this is a very fluid thing. When I started my game, I observed that the players wanted someone to play boss, and since I was the organizer, the task often fell to me. Having someone who can and does say, "Okay, meanwhile, back at the game" is valuable. Since everyone knows that someone has that authority, everyone can conclude that any social chitchat that goes on and is not being warned is ipso-facto not engaging in a disruptive activity. It makes the boundaries of acceptable behavior easier to figure out.

This was, perhaps, especially important since this was a new group full of players who mostly hadn't gamed with each other before. Now, it turned out that I am more relaxed about table talk than some of the other players are. So, later on, some of the other players took the  phrase I use ("meanwhile, back at the game"), and they used it to signal to the others that chitchat is over. These days policing that stuff is not something I pay much attention to -- the players mostly do it for me, and their language has shifted into whatever they prefer. Note how the boundaries evolved. I got an initial grant of authority from the players, in order to set boundaries within which they could be comfortable. Once we had gotten friendly with each other, they took the ritual I used and adopted it for everyone, so that there was continuity with the previous social mode. And now, things just magically work, from my perspective. :)

[Callan S.]

That's a really interesting transition!

Basically it looks like you took the authority role (and with it personal responsiblity for stuff ups). Your techniques were evaluated by everyone else and when nothing exploded over time, the ins and outs of them were learnt.

Now there was no official change over point, but you can basically see where this authority technique became part of the social contract and not a propety of you. They then emulated how you'd handled things, not taking on the authority themselves though, but simply exerting an authority that although you originated it, was then embedded in the SC for anyone to enact (as long as they emulated how you first did it/pioneered it).

I think you'd probably find that even though this technique was modelled after your way of doing it, if you tried to change it now it wouldn't work. The authority has moved away from you as you noted, even though the technique emulates you, its now public property.

Creating authority just to create and test run management techniques, is an interesting extension. Once the technique is cut and dried, its then adopted and the authority of its creator, removed.

[M. J. Young]

The OAD&D party "speaker" technique can be very effective in streamlining play with large groups. I've had thirty players in a D&D game that ran smoothly because most of the time I only had to talk to one of them. If they didn't like what he was doing, they would settle it among themselves and get back to me.

On the other side of the screen, I had excellent results from in-game party hierarchy. For what were probably social reasons, both the referee and the other players looked to my character to be the party leader. He (the character) in turn appointed other characters who seemed to share some of his views of party function to be lieutenants. They were structured twice--first, there was a "team" level and a "squad" level, by which I could divide the (large) party into two groups or four, each having its own leader; second, there was a specific command succession, by which everyone knew who took command if I was unavailable, and who after that, up to the point that the last "leader" was unable to command. The referee also had this information, as was able to quickly identify which player could speak for the group, thus generally streamlining the management of twenty to thirty players and several non-player characters.

(We also used Standard Operating Procedures, which were integrated with the teams and squads structure through a Duty Roster, such that for example when we made camp each squad knew what it was supposed to do in terms of caring for animals and equipment, feeding the party, organizing the campsite, and setting watches. Again, this meant the referee could find the player who could speak for the people on watch, because there wasn't any question about who was doing that.)

It's not the only way to go, but it's very effective particularly for large groups.

--M. J. Young

[neelk]

Creating authority just to create and test run management techniques, is an interesting extension. Once the technique is cut and dried, its then adopted and the authority of its creator, removed.

I think of establishing these conventions as a common-knowledge problem. For example, the rule that drivers stay on the right side of the road is only valuable if you know it, and you know that everyone else knows it, and they know that everyone else knows it, and so on. That is, its value arises from the fact that it's mutual knowledge. Having a "dictator" is just a convenient way of making the process of forming conventions easier -- if everyone knows that that a distinguished player (usually the GM) can establish new conventions, then they also know that everyone else will learn these new rules the same time they do.

I think it's very important to be aware that this isn't coercive power. The others accept this role only because it increases their own enjoyment, and I think M.J.'s note demonstrates that very well. People want their own contributions to be recognized, and in a completely chaotic environment there's a good risk that their play will be overlooked. With more structure, then the other players know how to organize themselves to avoid ignoring people. (Of course, you can also get drowned in structure....)

His thirty(!) player game had a lot more formal rules (and players, too) than I can readily imagine, but the Nobilis game I run has more than I've used before, too. For example, I bought a kitchen timer to make sure that scenes don't run overlong. I'm used to playing with 3-4 people for 5-6 hours, but with 6 players for 3 hours there's much less slack. In fact, it was a disastrous session that prompted me to go down this route -- one player didn't get to do anything all session, and I felt really bad about that.

[Callan S.]

Mmm, another interesting thing.

Perhaps it'd be better to see these people as 'standardisers' rather than dictators. They have in them a set of rules that as a single being they've been able to work out and clarify to themselves thoroughly. A group can do this over time, but we want to game now.

So the 'standardiser' essentially expresses the management method for whatever (rules management, etc). Eventually other users will hear the same methods over and over. At about this time its clear that the majority of the method is shared knowledge, and the standardiser doesn't have to be refered to anymore (unless very specific management methods come up and all users with their shared knowledge still can't extrapolate an answer)